A “Race” To Deliver Two Natural Gas Compressors (You Can Guess Who Won)

When a company needed two natural gas compressors delivered from Houston, Texas to a job site in Montrose, Pennsylvania did they first call Next Exit Logistics?

NO.

And that’s when the trouble started.

Gas compressors are massive, comprised of several huge parts, including a diesel-powered compressor, the engine, a platform, control panel, piping, muffler, and more.

The client needed the compressors at the job site by November 21st, 2016 and the vendor they first hired departed Houston on November 8th to ship one of the compressors. Such a shipment should take between three to five days and all was well until the first compressor shipment got stuck in Morgantown, West Virginia on November 11th for months because the shipping company hadn’t planned ahead to apply for the proper permits for a super load through Pennsylvania.

The client then called Next Exit Logistics. They thought we owned helicopters that would help with large shipments and wanted us to head to Pennsylvania, pick the compressor up, and fly it to another location in Pennsylvania. However, this misinterpretation by the company actually ended up being very beneficial for us.

Identifying Real Needs

After conducting a full consultation with the client, we discovered that they wanted us to transport at least one compressor to the job site in order to get it running by the end of the year.

The client then brought us in as experts in a conference call between the client and manufacturer in Houston who had one of the compressors. We were asked to consult and strategize a plan to ship the compressor as quickly and efficiently as possible. One of the ideas we implemented was removing the diesel generator off of the compressor skid to make it lighter, therefore avoiding super load status and the need to have a state-issued permit for super loads. The compressor would then be reassembled on the job site in Pennsylvania. The manufacturer was able to do so and the shipment ended up being a total of five large trailers.

We rolled out the compressor skid and the diesel generator on December 13th, the fan on December 19th, the platform on December 20th, and the panel on December 22nd.

The Diesel Engine Shipment Arrives in Pennsylvania in Three Days!

The diesel engine shipment arrived at the job site and was unloaded on December 16th, just three days after its Houston departure.

No longer a super load, the compressor skid arrived at the job site on December 19th, six days from departure. It would have arrived sooner, but a winter storm on December 17th prevented travel.

The platform arrived on December 23rd.

The panel made its way to Pennsylvania on December 27th (we gave the panel driver a few days off for the Christmas holiday).

For those of you counting, that’s four out of five trailers arriving at their destination before the end of the year!

The fifth trailer (carrying the compressor fan) arrived in Hagerstown, Maryland on December 22nd. Unfortunately, this shipment had a super load status which meant that we would have to wait for the Pennsylvania permit to be issued before we could move it. The holiday season also meant delays in permit processing.

The fan finally left Maryland on January 11th and arrived at the job site on January 13th.

Meanwhile, back in West Virginia…..

The other shipping company finally received its Pennsylvania permits and delivered the first compressor shipment to the job site on January 19th, a full six days after the last of our five trailers delivered their loads.

Remember:

The first company shipped on November 8th and didn’t deliver until January 19th.

We were contacted on December 7th and delivered the first load three days after shipping.

We ended up delivering four out of five loads by December 27th, with the fifth delivered January 13th.

We had less time but still delivered all shipments before the first company did.

Yes, we do rock.

If you’d like to learn more about how we were able to pull off such a huge shipment in record time, call Next Exit Logistics at 866-624-2661 or e-mail us to see how we can help you with your shipping needs.